Injuries Abound

We just cannot seem to stay away from injuries around here.  Monday began as any other day until Josiah came running from the play room crying.  This was odd to begin with, because it is usually Henry crying and running from the play room.  For whatever reason, Henry felt it wise to volley a tupperware container (with a hard headed baby doll inside) at Josiah which left a hole in the bridge of his nose.  My first thought was, 'oh no, he's going to need it glued back together.'  My second thought was, 'I do NOT want to go back to another urgent care/emergency room.'  Currently, I am fighting Henry's ER charges of "dental surgery."  The hospital billed out $3000 to put Henry's teeth back in at the first ER and $5200 to take his teeth back out at the second.  This doesn't even include all the other charges totaling over $15,000 for what amounts to two stitches in his lip and one x-ray of his mouth.  But I digress.
So, Josiah had a hole on his nose, not huge, but still an open wound.  I basically held it shut for 30 minutes and then put on some gauze and tape to keep it together.  So he walked around with a pointed -up nose for 24 hours, but the wound closed nicely and we saved a couple hundred dollars.

After this, you can imagine my dismay when on Thursday Josiah walked into the kitchen with a bloody mouth and a tooth in his hand.  He said Henry punched him in the face and knocked out his (thankfully) already loose tooth.  Sympathy is not my best quality on a good day, but it's definitely not functioning well as of late.  "Josiah, why did Henry punch you in the face?"
"Well, (much hemming and hawing) I kicked him in the stomach."
Some days it seems easier to just throw up my hands in defeat.

It is now my goal to get our homeschool room put together and functioning next week so that we can start our school year lickety-split.  We need to get on a schedule and not have so much free time for injuries.  We spend three days next week at our Classical Conversations Practicum learning about the CC curriculum and how to teach it well.  So, that should get us all in the mindset to get the school year started right.  Plus, we got some Star Wars 1st Grade and Preschool Math/Reading/Writing books so the boys are ready to break those open.

Josiah did keep me laughing at the beginning of the week.  He had asked for a box of Whoppers from the grocery store and since they were on sale, I got them.  Plus, he doesn't understand that people eat a whole box at a time.  I give him 2-4 at a time and he thinks it's great.  :)  Well, he could never remember the name and kept calling them "whippers" and "waffles."  I laughed for several days until one day I didn't laugh and he said, "Why didn't you laugh at me?" at which point I realized he was saying it wrong on purpose.

Caroline is two going on thirty-seven.  Every time I tell the boys to do anything, she is right behind me repeating it to them.  Sometimes she even remembers the rules (imagine that) and regulates the boys before I've said anything.  Henry has a tendency to kick the cabinets when sitting at the bar in the kitchen.  If Caroline should hear him kicking, she shouts, "Enry, stop kicking! STOP KICKING!!!"  Of course, Henry finds this funny and in no way is going to listen to her so the matter only escalates.
Caroline also is fiercely independent.  This is what comes out of her mouth All. Day. Long:
"I do it.  I do it.  I DO IT! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I DO IT!"

Despite the quite hot temperatures here, we have been blessed with a shady backyard.  It seems to be shady most of the day, so we have played out in it several days this week.  It is a great backyard.  Josiah decided he was Tarzan one day and swung from the branches.  Caroline thought it looked fun and went up to the branch from which he was hanging.  "I do it.  I do it.  I DO IT! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I DO IT!"  Josiah, kindly, helped her swing.  He played like that for half an hour or so until one branch snapped.  Josiah is at best 34 lbs, so these branches are not super strong.  Clearly our Tarzan and Jane days are over.


The previous owners had planted two fruit trees in the backyard.  Last month, Todd and I tried to guess what they were, then this past week we talked about it some more.  We finally got the brilliant idea to take some fruit off and cut it open to see.  Figs and limes.  (Although, by this time the limes were a little obvious even though they were still quite small.  And one of us did guess figs.)  Figs.  Hmmmm.  We weren't sure about that one.  But we picked some and they're actually pretty good.  I don't know if we need an entire tree of them, but it is cheap fruit.

In all our unpacking we are finding all sorts of things.  We found a firefighter costume that hadn't been opened yet, so now both boys have one.  That prompted lots of fire fighter pictures drawn.  I thought they boys did really good pictures.

Josiah's

Henry's

The boys (and Caroline)  received a package from a favorite Sunday School teacher back in Virginia.  They are happy with all things new, so they have been enjoying everything.  This afternoon they flew their airplanes outside and Josiah really got into it.  :)

this guy got his airplane to fly really well

That's some intense launching face.

And finally, Todd had a major accomplishment today.  He took apart the elliptical in the garage and brought it upstairs to our bedroom AND reassembled it.  So, now I'm on the hook to get back on it.  I never thought we'd get the giant dresser or this upstairs, so he has proven me wrong twice now.  Twice in ten years.

Oh, as just in case you're wondering what our new house looks like, Henry took a few pictures today.  Enjoy.

stairwell

windowsill (side view)

view from said windowsill

Clearly we know where his career path lies.

VBS

I have to start out with an apology for the blurry pictures.  I think every picture I have this time is slightly blurry.  It is because my cell phone gets handled by too many little ones and the camera lens gets smudged and I forget to clean it before snapping the pictures...

We did VBS (Vacation Bible School) this week.  It was a first for all of us and after a little hesitation from the boys, they had a great time all week.  It helped that the theme was superheroes.  I volunteered in Josiah's class, so I got to go to all the events that the boys did.  The church that held the VBS does everything BIG, so they went to two shows each day - one that was similar to what they do on Sunday mornings and another "Big Show" (as it was dubbed) that had to do with the VBS theme and Jesus.  I would try to spot Henry in the big rooms when all the kids were together.  Whenever the kids would stand up to sing and do hand motions, (following the teenagers and adults on the stage), Henry would remain seated through it all.  Josiah would stand, but did not attempt any hand movements or even singing that I noticed (although he often mentioned that he couldn't see when they stood up because of his height).  So, it was to our shock when we went to the "Big Show" Thursday night as a family, to find out the conclusion of the story, that Henry and Josiah stood up at their seats and danced around to all the songs.  They yelled and cheered when appropriate and were very much into it.

The whole drive home from VBS that night, Josiah and Henry were telling each other jokes that they found hilarious.  For some reason they thought it was funny to guess what God eats and where He eats, etc.  Henry kept opening his jokes with, "I have a good one," which was the funniest part for Todd and I.  He definitely has a really good sense of humor.

Sir Chomps

"Digit"

We would also suggest that you don't challenge Henry to a staring contest any time soon.  He beat me almost every time this weekend.  We'd say, "1, 2, 3, go," look up and see Henry with this face.  Somehow by keeping his mouth wide open, it kept his eyelids from blinking.

Henry showed us just how mature he is getting at Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a.  If you dress like a cow from head to hoof, you get a free meal.  So, these were our kids.

Last year when we went, Henry was very scared of the big cow that walked around.  This year, he went right up to it, touched it, and posed for pictures.  I told him I was really proud of him for not being scared anymore.  He brushed it off and said it was because he's 4 now.  Caroline, on the other hand, took his spot in the "quite scared" section.

Todd took a 4-day weekend, so we were able to get the house a bit more put together.  We finally have all of our furniture in place, including a 250 lb dresser that Todd  and I got upstairs.  This piece has always been the worst piece in all our moves because of its size and weight.  Also, because I was convinced that the drawers did not come out.  But then Todd was talking to a coworker who mentioned the locks on the drawers.  So, Todd figured out how to take the drawers out for the very first time.  Then we got it up the stairs without too much trouble.  Now I can get all of Princess Caroline's many boxes of clothes put away.  I think she may have more clothes than anyone at this point.  (Although she does have many clothes still to grow into.)

We have another week of unpacking to do.  Josiah wants me to figure out how to join our neighborhood pool, so I may muster up the strength to figure that out as well.  It's too hot to do anything else outside.  We made it to a playground for about 20 minutes the other morning before heading in for the A/C.  I have no idea how people lived here before A/C was invented.

4000 Miles Later

Well a lot has happened in a month.  We now have a new house and an extra 4000 miles on our car.

We thought we had the move to our new house all planned out.  The truck was rented, the closing date was set, and Aunt Claire was coming into town to help take care of the kids for us.  Aunt Claire came and she was a godsend to us.  She is the only reason we were able to move our whole house in one weekend.  She took care of the kids by day and helped me clean the new house by night.  The kids were super excited to have her back again and they have been planning a trip to go see her ever since she left.  Although Henry has decided to postpone his travels a few years until his teeth grow back.  Apparently where she lives is so posh they require all teeth to be in place.  She was put to work even more than we had anticipated because we had to use a smaller moving van than expected.  I had rented a 24' truck weeks prior.  Upon going to pick up the keys, they said the 26' truck had a flat and to just come back in a few hours while they changed it.  Uh....no.  So I left with a 16' truck.  Todd and I filled it up (fully) three times and we could really have done a fourth trip, but I was sort of over the whole moving van thing.  So we took an additional 3 car loads (each).  But we are in and we love the house.  

A little over a week after moving, the kids and I took off for Virginia.  Instead of traveling the usual southern route, we headed north and visited family and friends along the way.  Our first stop was in Arkansas.  I hadn't realized it at the time, but google maps gave us two routes to take.  I chose the one that skipped Dallas thinking I could avoid big city traffic.  What I did not realize was I had chosen the scenic route.  It was very beautiful, no doubt, but definitely not the route I would have chosen with three small children and a tropical storm to contend with.  We left a day late thinking we could stay behind the tropical storm, but we only stayed behind it for the first 90 minutes of our drive, then we drove with it for two days.  So I was driving up and down mountains in Oklahoma with sheets of rain coming down.  Not the wisest move.  And who knew Oklahoma had mountains?  I always thought it was flat.  Not so.  The kids, however, did excellent.  Josiah was super helpful in the car.  He could open up food packets for Henry.  He drew pictures and Henry would color them in.  They worked very well together and it was a very pleasant drive from that stand point (and Caroline took two naps).  We spent the night at my aunt's house in Arkansas.  The kids were bonkers for her cats.  They cannot wait to go back and visit "Ticket" and "Mystery Cat" as Henry dubbed the second one that wisely hid during the entirety of our visit.  During the next stage of our trip both boys drew many pictures of the cats.  

The next leg was to Tennessee.  I had never been through Arkansas or Tennessee before, but they are both very beautiful states - lush, green, and mountainous.  We spent the next night with some friends I hadn't seen in nine years.  It was great to catch up and Josiah loved their two small dogs.  Henry and Caroline, not so much.  We are super grateful for all the family and friends who put us up this trip.  It made it so much nicer to travel knowing our destination was not some random hotel in a random city.

Day three had us traveling to Virginia.  The wee travelers were growing a little weary on this leg of the drive, but they still did well.  In the mountains of Virginia we hit a massive storm.  The lightning was so close I thought it would hit the road.  The rain was coming down so hard I could only see three of the dashed white lane lines on the road at a time.  Of course, this was the time that Henry told me he had to go pee.  Really?  I asked him to wait a little bit for the storm to let up because the last thing I wanted to do was take all three kids out in this downpour.  This was totally against my M.O., to ask any of them to wait for the bathroom.  But when the storm was not letting up, I finally decided that the next overpass we went under I would just stop the car on the side of the road and let him go from the car.  This was not usually something I would consider doing either, so that was how hard it was raining.  But then I saw a sign for Chick-fil-a and decided that we could try that.  They have the cleanest bathrooms by far.  While approaching the exit, I asked Henry if he still had to go.  "No," he said.  "Really?" I asked.  "Yes. I don't have to pee."  he said.  I did not totally believe him, but let it go and planned on stopping at an exit further down and hopefully with better weather.  So we passed the exit when Henry piped up, "But I really have to go poop."  Oh child.  A little while later, we exited the storm and found a rest stop.  We were all relieved.  

We finally made it to Grandad & Nana's house late that night.  The boys decided to tell them everything they missed for the past 6 months all in one night.  The next day we drove to the beach, but only after I decided to keep things interesting by locking my keys in the car.  AAA to the rescue.
This was Father's Day, so a shout out to a great dad right here.  We all missed him a lot on the trip (we won't leave without him again).  He was a beast in moving the house, too.

It was really great to see Grandma and Grandpa again at the beach.  They were brave and took the boys to the bookstore to pick out two books each (up from the one book each that was set at the beach house).  Of course Josiah's "book" was a 5-book boxed set.  He knows how to work the grandparents.
  

A snippet of a day at the beach: 

Josiah loved the water still.  He loved pretending to surf in/on it.  He is a beach lover.  

Henry loved to sit under the umbrella, in the shade, on a chair, eating goldfish, and sipping on a Gatorade.

Caroline loved to get a bucket of water from the ocean, bring it up to the beach, dump it out; hit repeat x50.  She also enjoyed flattening any sand castle the boys attempted to make.  

The boys loved the putt-putt golf place.  On our first visit, I spent the first four holes attempting to show them how to hold their golf club properly and how to hit the ball so that it went in the hole with the least amount of shots.  Then I realized it was fruitless and just let them play.  Henry got a par 2 on every hole.  He would hit his ball initially, then he would pick it up and move it to within an inch of the hole and push it in.  Josiah averaged 10 shots per hole.  He at least showed improvement from hole 1 to hole 18.   

Aye, Matey.

From there we traveled to see Great Grandma and got to catch up with her.  Josiah told her that when they woke up in the mornings that he would teach her to draw.  And so he did.  They drew the Cat in the Hat the first morning and then Pete the Cat the second.  What made this humorous is that Great Grandma is an artist and has been painting for many, many years.  But she was a very good sport.  

We even got to spend a day with their cousins who traveled all the way from Africa.  They played really well together, too, until Caroline used a golf club to clonk one cousin in the head.  It was an  uplifting day - we really enjoyed being around family.  

Finally we made it back to Nana and Grandad's and spent a week with them.  The weather was perfect for the first four days or so and the boys loved playing baseball & frisbee outside.  They climbed their "climbing tree" a lot, and even Caroline fought them to get up it.  They got to eat pancakes and bacon for breakfast every morning and their favorite pork chops for dinner.  Nana got a lot of praise for her cooking.  (I make some pretty skimpy meals in comparison down here.)     

We even got to spend time with friends playing at Blue Bird Gap Farm.  Josiah always calls it "Blueberry Gap Farm," so of course, Henry calls it that as well.  Upon arriving Josiah could read the sign with it's actual name and noted that they had printed the wrong name on it.  He was so excited to see friends again, he probably scared them a little jumping up and down while making giddy sounds.  He saw friends at church as well and later we got to spend time at a friend's house.  They were thrilled to spend time with everyone (as was I).  

Finally, we got some pictures made with the wonderful Ms. Ginny.  I don't know what got into Henry, but he all of a sudden decided that he wanted to streak across the grass.  He's never been a streaker at home and I don't know where he got the idea, but there he went trying to pull all his clothes off, laughing his head off.  It was funny in a confusing sort of way, at least for a moment.  

We drove back the southern route.  Not quite as pretty as Tennessee and Arkansas, but we could do it in two days instead of three.  All-in-all the kids did super well on the drive.  I used to complain about a three hour drive to the beach every summer when I was a kid.  It felt like forever.  Now when I tell the boys we have three hours of driving left, they get excited that it's almost done.  They have a totally different perspective.  We even did it without electronics in the car which was an achievement for me.  I'm holding off as long as possible for them.  We are very, very blessed that the boys like to draw because it keeps them entertained for a long time in the car.  Caroline will look out the window and suck her thumb for a lot of it, too.  We are blessed she has that thumb.  :)  That and a children's CD set on repeat.

We are glad to finally be home.  Let the unpacking begin!

     

  

     

  

Henry's Teeth...or the Lack Thereof...

Well, Sunday evening did not go quite as planned.  Todd was taking apart the boys’ bunk beds in anticipation of our move at the end of the week.  I had gone in the room to take pieces of bed out to stack elsewhere.  While stacking a piece of bed, I hear Henry come crying towards me.  It is clear his mouth is bleeding so I take him into our hall bathroom and turn the water on at which time I see a tooth in his hand.  The bleeding is also much heavier than I anticipated.  So we move to a different, better equipped bathroom, and it becomes clear his lip needs more expert attention.  Also, in the transition from hall bathroom to master bathroom, Todd says he found his other tooth on the living room floor.  I could not believe we just had our second child knock out two teeth. 

So we quickly get ready to go to the urgent care place up the road.  We get there, go in the back immediately, and as the nurse practitioner looks at it, she hems and haws and finally says that we need to go to the ER because he would probably need to be sedated to get his lip stitched up (and they do not do sedation there).  I get directions from her since we’ve never been to a hospital here, and fortunately it’s not too far down the road.  (And on a side note, there are hospitals everywhere here.  I have never seen so many, so I had to know to which one she was referring.)

At the ER we walk through a heavily packed lobby, check in at the desk, and are immediately taken back.  I’m loving the not having to wait part.  They do quick vitals on him and bring us to an exam room.  A doctor comes in immediately, quickly asks what happened, takes his teeth, and puts them back in his mouth!  I was not expecting that or I would have put them in milk.  Having been through this before, I was under the assumption that they didn’t put baby teeth back in.  She says that it’s best to put them back in and that we have to go to the ER in downtown Houston that has a pediatric dentist on-call 24/hrs a day to get a bracket in place to hold those two teeth in place.  She says the lip will heal on its own and doesn’t need to be stitched up.  Again, not what I was expecting!  I played my, “I’m not from around here” card when it came to asking directions to the next hospital.  She left and said she’d take care of all of that.  And she did.  She printed out google maps for me and wrote down the most direct route for me to get there.  Then she said, “The worst is over.  Drive slowly.”  J

So we were on the road again.  The next hospital was on a road that had many, many hospitals.  Baylor has their own hospital, University of Texas has their own, Texas Childrens’ (not our destination), Kelsey-Seybold, on and on.  Huge, towering hospitals to the right and left.  It felt like New York City for a few minutes, but every building was a different hospital.  Her directions were great and I was praying the whole way there to not make any wrong turns.

Henry had been a very quiet and cooperative patient up until now and had fallen asleep on the way into Houston.  We made it to the parking garage, level 2 (like suggested), and amazingly found the pediatric ER.  I carried Henry the whole way because he remained asleep at that point.  You could tell the adrenaline was pumping because he weighed in at 45 lbs at the first ER and we walked for quite a distance to get from the parking garage to the second ER.  This ER was also crowded, and this time we waited. 

Watching the Disney Channel (which had horrible shows!)

Finally back in a room, the ER doctor says, “They put his teeth back in?” with a sort of eye-rolling like, “why would they do that?”  They called the on-call dentist.  He arrives and is VERY good with Henry.  Henry would not communicate with anyone.  He would not speak and would only barely nod or shake his head at questions.  This doctor worked up a rapport with him to where Henry would answer his questions (nodding/shaking) and even give him “five” when asked (albeit weakly).  Henry was also scared to swallow so he was constantly having to have his gauze changed out from the drool.  He was quiet, subdued, and mostly just observant to what was going on around him.  It was also 10:00pm at night and he was quite tired.  

They took an x-ray of his mouth to make sure no other teeth were fractured and fortunately there were no other problems.   They also said they were going to sedate him so that they could take out his teeth (that were barely holding on anyway) and stitch up his lip.  And that’s what they did.  They only gave him half of the sedation medicine, though, because he was already acting so sedated on his own.  They kept asking me if the other ER gave him any pain meds (no).  They quickly took the teeth out with their medical instruments (which really I could have plucked them right out of his mouth they were so loose in there).  Then when the other doctor started to stitch up his lip he put up a bit of a fuss.  I’m thinking it was then that they wished he had been given the full dose.  J  But really it was fast and he doesn’t seem to remember it hurting or anything. 

Drinking juice after it was all over.

So finally it was all done.  They had to monitor him for 30 minutes since he’d been sedated before letting us go home.  We were there for much longer than 30 minutes.  I started to get worried they were going to call the cops to see how he “really” hurt himself.  Finally they came in and took off the dreaded blood pressure cuff on his leg (that really bugged him), took out his IV, and the post-ox thing on his finger which he liked because his finger glowed red.  We made it to the car after looking out of several windows that showed a crane outside resting on the ground.  Henry was fascinated by this at midnight.  Paid our $10 parking garage fee and got home at 12:45 a.m.  Henry didn’t move a muscle when we put him in bed. 

So, this is the story that I told all the ER docs that we encountered.  The story of what we were told had happened (since neither Todd nor I witnessed it).  It was simple.  The eldest told us that Henry was running in the living room, fell/ran into the ottoman (a soft ottoman), fell to the floor, and boom, his teeth fell out.  We didn’t suspect anything different since we are constantly telling the kids to not run in the house.  Also, Henry seems to injure himself frequently because he just doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going.  Since Henry wasn’t talking that night, he didn’t say anything about it.

Then, Monday evening, Todd asked Henry what happened, and Henry freely told him.  He didn’t just fall to the ground; he was pushed.  By the eldest.  Henry just said it matter-of-factly to Todd.  So that changed things.  We clearly had to do something with Josiah.  We decided to make him use his money to buy Henry the only foods he could eat – bananas, sliced cheese, pudding, jello, ice cream, applesauce, etc.  .  I spoke with him about it and really got nowhere.  Just a circular conversation.  No remorse; just anger over the punishment.  Todd talked to him.  I don’t know how their conversation went.  But I took him to the grocery store Monday evening and had him pick out the foods, give his money to the cashier, and I spotted him the $2 that he went over.  In the grocery store he was much more positive talking about the foods he was going to get Henry.  He even said that the next day he’d have to draw a lot more pictures to sell so he can earn more money again.

Poor Henry has to take a very bad tasting antibiotic three times a day (12.5mL which is a LOT to get down) for a week.  He gets a bowl of ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to get it down.  At first I thought that there was something in the medicine that was making him hyper because he would just start acting crazy after taking it.  Then it dawned on me that I was giving him a bowl of chocolate ice cream with it.  But it helps the medicine go down, so we’re going to continue that trend for the week.

The next day.

He’s three full days out from the accident and already his gums looked like they’ve healed.  The holes have closed up and they are still bruised, but they look sooooooo much better.  The doctors said that the gums are the fastest healing tissue in the body.  I remember that with Caroline’s teeth/gums, too.  His lip still looks pretty bad.  I think the problem is he has a lot of dried blood hanging from it (sorry for the gross image) and it looks bad.  But the swelling has gone down a lot. 

For the most part, he’s back to his old self again.  Talking constantly, except now he spits when he talks.  I even have to tell him to stop running in the house 10 times an hour.  I am beyond excited to move to our new house on Friday and not have hard ceramic floors anymore.  Hardwood floors have got to be a little more forgiving. 

I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d have two children knock out two teeth each.  These are going to make for some lovely family pictures the next 4-6 years…

Kindergarten Completed

Monday night, we went to bed with a big storm outside.  The lightning was constant and the thunder was the loudest I've ever heard.  It felt like the house was shaking with the booms.  Amazingly the kids slept through it all.  The next morning all of Houston seemed to be flooded.  We were very blessed that our neighborhood seemed fine.  Todd saw the roads he needed to take to get to work on the news, saw that they were clear, and so decided to venture in.  He said the highway had very few cars that were moving on it.  He passed several abandoned cars.  He made it to work and found an empty parking lot.  15 minutes into his workday, he received a text and email that his school wouldn't open until noon that day.  He stayed and stuck it out until 3pm when the 85 degree temperature inside was too much (plus the threat for more rain and flooding).  On Tuesday, Todd was looking at the weather in our area and it had an emergency alert for potential flooding until Saturday!  Not just a few hours, but 4 days.  It is so sad that many have lost their life to the flooding.   

We have been without a dishwasher for a month now.  We have sort of grown used to it, but I will be very happy to be in a house with a working dishwasher again.  I do not do all the dishes at once, they are done in spurts sporadically throughout the day.  This is because of my helper.  Whenever she sees me with the kitchen faucet on, she runs to get the step stool while saying, "I help you. I help you."  She scoots right beside me, climbs up and immediately goes for a cup (plastic, thank goodness).  Then she says, "Bubbles." so I squeeze some bubbles into her cup.  She then fills the cup with water from the running faucet, proceeds to dump it, and then says, "Bubbles." again.  Hit repeat 25x (or forever if I let her.)  When I dare try to rinse my own dish using the faucet, she pushes my arm with her arm and says, "My turn."  And this is why each dishwashing session ends a little quicker than desired.  When said dishwashing session ends, she turns to clean the countertops.  She gets a big kitchen towel, and moves it back and forth on the countertop.  If the crumbs should hit the floor, that's a win because the countertop now looks clean.  She also picks up all items on the countertop and says, "What's this?"  Sometimes in addition to towels, she'll use the remaining number of napkins in their holder one at a time to clean the same countertop.  Sometimes, Henry tries to help with the dishes as well, but Caroline isn't too keen on sharing the step stool with him and she is quite vocal (and physical) about it.  

cleaning

We did have an incident this week which made me glad that she sticks up for herself.  At the library, Caroline always likes to play at the lego table.  It is not a very big table, square, so it fits four kids.  She went to an empty side and started playing.  A bigger boy, who had been on one side, moved next to her and tried to take the legos in front of her.  She just sort of looked at him and kept trying to play.  But then he used the side of his body to try to push her out of the way.  I was watching from a couple of feet away to see what she would do before intervening if necessary.  She looked at him, pushed him right back with her body, and he went back to his side of the table.  :)

Watch out Lynda Carter

Caroline has been quite difficult with her sleeping for weeks now.  At night, she'll get out of bed, put on this pathetic looking face, cock her head to the right so that it is resting on her shoulder, and say, "belly hurt." Or she'll say, "Not feel well."  We have serious doubts about the validity of the statements, since she is copying Josiah verbatim (in broken-English-toddler-speak).  The reason we doubt them is because she always asks for applesauce, or "sauce" as she likes to call it.  At the point she's gone to bed, she's probably already had at least two packets of her beloved squeeze applesauce that day, so the answer is always "no, go back to bed."  More pathetic face.  More cocking of the head to the right.  She's bound to give up on this method soon, since I'm not sure we have ever given into it.  Not only that but she's been waking up anywhere from 4:50 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.  With all three kids sharing a room here, we can't just send her back without waking everyone up.  That'll be the first thing we do at the new house - send her back to bed in her own room.  :)  

We made a cake this week, because we're trying to use up all our food before we move, and cake seemed like a good thing to use up.  The idea was to top it with Cool Whip and then decorate it with strawberries and blueberries.  I had the idea to do the American flag because of Memorial Day.  But the idea of Captain America's shield won out.  The boys did not want to help me decorate it, so upon eating it for dessert one night, Henry sees it and says it would have been better if we had done the Hulk.  Josiah doesn't like Cool Whip (or even the whip cream that sprays out).  Some days you just can't win around here.  Todd and I thought it was delicious.  So that Caroline is not always left out of desserts, Todd found her allergen-free frozen blueberry muffin tops.  She has never been a big fan of baked goods the few times she's had them so I was not expecting her reaction of pure delight.  She was eating it before Todd got home from work (she ate early that night) and I told her to tell Daddy that she liked it when he got home.   The second he walks through the door, she says, "Daddy! Daddy!  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Like.  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  You got. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bread."  Then she kept asking for "more bread."  

Josiah has been drawing and tracing pictures from the Mo Willems books all week.  He is trying to draw all the pictures from several books, so the stack of pictures is quite large.  On Friday, he got the entrepreneurial spirit about him and decided to sell his pictures.  To Todd and I.  The going rate for me was 15 cents a picture.  He told me that Daddy would be charged more because he had more money than I do.  Finally, when Todd got home that evening, we both managed to pay five cents per picture because he was having a half price sale.  (We haven't learned fractions yet.)  We were told the next day the pictures would cost $20 each, so really it was a steal.  He now has 55 cents to his name, plus the pennies Henry earned and didn't feel like keeping.  Caroline "earned" 2 cents because she insisted on having two coins.  She must have two of everything - especially cookies.  I did like that Josiah said he wanted to save up his money to buy a new lego kit.  We are all about him saving his money to buy something he really wants.  We've had a hard time trying to figure out ways for him to earn money, so I appreciated his art sale.

drawing...

...and selling

Saturday was spent celebrating Josiah's completion of kindergarten.  He was very excited to learn he was now a first grader.  He chose Sweet Tomatoes to celebrate, which is a favorite for all of us.  However, we weren't sure we were going to make it to a table to actually eat.  Once you walk through the door, you make your salad from a long buffet line before paying.  Todd had both boys plates on his tray at the boys' request.  They fussed and whined about half the things Todd put on their plates.  Henry even tried to remove certain items by pushing them off the plate onto the floor.  We were ready to hang it up and leave before we even got to a table.  We attempt to use it as an opportunity to try different vegetables that they don't normally get at home.  Yet, after all their fussing, they liked most of what they got.  They'll eat butternut squash, dried beets, quinoa salad, celery, and other vegetables if they are cut up in a fancy way (julienned?) and at a restaurant.  Caroline was eating all of my shredded carrots and sunflower seeds.  She even ate an entire sweet potato that I put on my plate to share with her.  Josiah made himself sick in the end.  His poor belly was aching after the salad, soup, bread, muffins, and ice cream sundae.

Rising 1st Grader!  Last Kindergarten activity...sorting cups by weight.

They wanted to see what was in the cups and discovered one cup had marshmallows.  

This is an exciting week coming up for us.  In the span of two days, we'll pick Aunt Claire up from the airport, close on a house, and move all our belongings into it.  Clearly we have the right crew to move our house:

The best part is Henry's Batman symbol is covering up his other label, "Librarian."  Don't mess with his library!

Before Caroline got WW, Henry gave it to Todd.

Henry literally taped this mask to his head.  

All About Mo Willems

I've heard on the radio recently that at this time a couple of years ago this area was going through a drought.  It is hard to believe because it has rained nearly every day for a couple of weeks now and the forecast has it raining every day for the next week as well.  The oddest thing is waking up to thunderstorms.  We've always been used to them in the evenings, but these are starting even before it gets light out.  This week we decided to embrace the rain instead of avoid it.

It started out with the boys wanting to act out their favorite Mo Willems books.  The two characters in many of them are an elephant named Gerald and his friend Piggie.  They acted out "Should I Share My Ice Cream?" first.  Naturally, they had to eat ice cream cones to act it out.  Henry, aka Gerald, was supposed to have his ice cream melt and fall to the ground while deciding whether or not to share his ice cream with Josiah, aka Piggie.  Henry, left the script behind and licked his ice cream cone instead of letting it drip all over the ground.  Good man.  After the ice cream cone story we had a decent rain storm and the boys wanted to act out "Do You Want to Play Outside?" in which the elephant and pig go outside to play and it promptly rains.  The boys started out just playing nicely in the rain, talking in their Gerald and Piggie accents.  Then Josiah's shoe broke, so he took off his shoes.  Henry followed suit.  After his shirt got soaked, Josiah asked to take that off as well, and of course Henry followed suit.  Then they decided to pick the weeds out of the driveway.  That was followed by throwing them at each other which devolved into a mud slinging fight, but a happy one.  At the end they were thoroughly wet, dirty, and happy.

Today Josiah set up a library for Todd and I to visit.  He and Henry were the librarians and Josiah read us a Mo Willems book for story time and then taught us how to draw the characters from the book as our activity.

We went to the real library on Thursday and got about 10 of these books.  Upon checking out, Caroline noticed a Gerald and Piggie poster hanging up in the children's area.  She shrieks, "Piggie! Piggie! Piggie!" over and over again.  Josiah said he needed to have a quiet time in our room so he could read his books.  He ushered all of us out and closed the door.  Since he doesn't know how to read silently yet, he read the books out loud, and quite loudly.  Todd gives the characters accents and Josiah tried to follow that.  Gerald gets a bad British accent and Piggie gets a high-pitched sort of voice.  Josiah's had a lot of practice with British accents because of his Thomas trains, (which have had a resurgence in interest this week).

When not reading, Josiah taught Henry how to climb door jambs.  Henry can get up a bit and just stay in place.  When he tries to do actual climbing, he falls immediately.  However, he is quite proud of himself.  

The master and his student

Caroline has already discovered how to annoy her brothers.  Often, when Henry tries to talk to me or ask me a question, she will get next to him and start yelling with a smile on her face.  He, of course, gets super mad and frustrated which only encourages her to do it more.  Where did she even learn this?  This has never been in the boys' wheelhouse of things to do.

She is also working on her upper body strength by vacuuming the same strip of floor for 15 minutes straight.  She wants no help vacuuming, but she doesn't have the strength to move it around the room in different directions.  So she just goes back and forth.  It looks painful after a while, she has got to be building up some biceps.  Every time I take the vacuum back it becomes a struggle.  She has her opinions and she is not afraid to share them.  One big accomplishment we've noticed this week is that she recognizes the letters, C, D, H, J, & M.  She knows for whom each letter stands as well (Caroline, Daddy, Henry, Josiah, & Mommy).  She is starting to learn colors slowly.  Henry always likes a "green egg" when he eats them.  So Caroline has started requesting green eggs as well.  I used to think that colorful eggs were sort of gross to eat, but at this point I barely notice it anymore.

And in other food news...  Broccoli used to be a favorite for all three kids.  Now Josiah doesn't like it anymore, Henry will only eat the "fur," and Caroline devours it - we have to cut her off for fear of her diapers the next day.

And in other "green" news... Henry spent all of Monday pretending to be the Hulk.  He referred to himself in the third person all day.  "Hulk want lunch." "Hulk play with legos."  and his favorite, "Hulk Smash!"  The threats of taking away super heroes is real around here.

We should have a busy week ahead of packing up our house.  They kids can't wait to have a house with stairs.  I am hoping that they will learn to sleep in a little better at the new house.  This past week, all three of them (in a line) walk into our bedroom at 5:30/5:45 a.m.  This is very normal for Josiah, and not so much for Henry and Caroline.  I don't know what's going on, but it'll be nice to separate them again.  Josiah should finish up his kindergarten work this week as well.  We are counting down the days for our summer plans to begin!